


Will of a Dragon

by 0bviousLeigh



Series: Yuma is a Girl [44]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Gender or Sex Swap, Other, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-23 10:14:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13785327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0bviousLeigh/pseuds/0bviousLeigh
Summary: “It’s unlike you to be nervous,” Ryoga says.“Don’t get jealous, it’s not for Kite,” Yuma says, looking around. “I’m waiting for Mizael to show up.”





	Will of a Dragon

As they make their way to the next set of ruins, Yuma finally shares her theory about the connection between the Barians and the ruins.

She paces across the deck of the airship. “Durbe knew the legend of the first ruin. Vector has some kind of madness just like the Prince in the second legend, and he knew the palace, even 96 said so. Alit is a fighter, just like the gladiator in the third ruin. And thanks to Alit, we now know that there are seven Barian emperors, just like there are seven Numbers and seven locations we have to search.” She stops pacing and looks over her friends. “I doubt it’s a coincidence. I think a Barian emperor is tied to each ruin.”

Ryoga frowns. “For that to be true, they would need to be human.”

Yuma nods. “I believe they were.”

“That seems far-fetched,” Kite says.

“Does it?” Yuma fires back. “They take on human form, we’ve all seen it. What other being do you know of that lives on a distant planet but can look like us?” She nods at Astral. “Astral is human-like, but he doesn’t change his appearance at will.”

Rio looks thoughtful. “But if they were human, they don’t seem to remember it.”

“That’s the other thing,” Yuma says, resuming her pacing, “If I’m correct, I would say we’re dealing with reincarnation. There’s something huge at play here, bigger than us, bigger than Earth, bigger than modern science. Most of what we’ve seen can’t be explained. Like this ship! Who can say how it got here? Reincarnation isn’t that far off. I propose that in the past, there was some dark force at play, which took brave humans and gathered them on a distant planet to become rulers. Rulers who then became obsessed with destroying Astral world. Perhaps we’re dealing not just with Barian emperors, but something that they themselves fear and answer to. After all, every civilization that has ever existed has something a step up from kings.”

“That would be gods,” Ryoga says. “Are suggesting a god is at work here?”

Yuma stops pacing. “I’m suggesting that there’s got to be a bigger picture,” she says. “It’s never what it seems to be on the surface, not where the Numbers are concerned. I’m not here to debate the existence of god either, but I think the Barians _believe_ that they are answering to one.”

“It’s a theory,” Kite says. “Far-fetched, but then again…I have to agree with Yuma, most of what we’ve seen is unbelievable.”

“There is another theory I have,” Yuma continues, “Less far-fetched, though. I think the ruins and legends around them have a theme—betrayal, followed by violent death. The Hero, Dumon, was betrayed by his fellow knights and killed. The mad Prince, Vector, betrayed his people and killed himself. The Gladiator, Alit, was betrayed by the Prince’s men and executed publicly. So I don’t think we’ll be encountering many pleasant things at the next ruins.”

But the trouble starts before they’ve even landed—the ship exits the wormhole and they find themselves in the middle of Shílín, the stone forest in China. It is not easy to navigate the stone spires stretching from the ground, and it’s made more difficult when the ship’s steering mechanism stops responding.

“Orbital, get us down!” Kite screams. “Anywhere will do!”

So Orbital drops them at the base of a tall spire…and then tells them the ruins are most likely located on top of it—the top they can’t even see through the low-hanging clouds.

“Can’t Orbital fly us up there?” Kotori asks, peering up at the top.

But Orbital’s body is smoking—the robot is going to be of no help to them.

Yuma digs through her bag and pulls out rope, gloves, and climbing hooks. “Explorers must always come prepared!” She says with a grin.

Rio bails out at once, and Kotori follows suit. So Yuma hooks Kite and Ryoga up to the climbing ropes, tells the boys to follow her lead, and starts up the cliff.

“I’ve always wanted to come to this spot,” Yuma yammers as she climbs. “Of course I thought I would be much more prepared, and, well it was something dad and I had talked about doing, so I thought I would be with him. I also thought I would be older than this. I certainly never imagined a glowing alien would accompany me, much less you two. Actually Kite I didn’t even know you existed while I was thinking about this trip so hey, ain’t life funny like that.”

“Yuma!” Kite and Ryoga scream.

A bunch of rocks come tumbling down the cliff.

“Press tight to the wall!!” Yuma screams.

The rocks tumble past, and Yuma feels a few bump her. She looks up towards the top of a cliff, and hears a low rumble.

“What in Kaiba Corporation was that?” she wonders.

Astral appears over her shoulder. “It sounded like the cry of a dragon,” he says.

Yuma scoffs. “And how would you know what a dragon sounds like?”

“Galaxy Eyes!” Kite shouts.

“Well, yeah,” Yuma says, “I guess, but Galaxy Eyes is a hologram…”

“No, look!” Kite snaps.

Yuma looks down—he has the card out and it’s glowing. She looks back up to the top of the cliff. Dragons…

“Oh, fuck me sideways!” Yuma snaps as she goes back to climbing. “I better not find Mizael waiting for us up there!”

When they get to the top of the spire they find not Mizael, but a giant gate, the door of which opens without them touching it. As they walk through the gate they see a palace that looks much like the Forbidden City in Beijing, and dragon motifs everywhere—on the pillars, on the roof gables, and on the floors.

“Watch out,” Yuma mutters to Ryoga, “Kite might try to steal this stuff.”

“WHO IS TALKING ABOUT STEALING?!” A voice booms.

Yuma yelps and whirls around to find a little old man standing at a distant building. Like something out of a CGI kung-fu movie, the man leaps and lands right in front of them.

“It was a joke,” Yuma squeaks, but the man isn’t looking at her.

“You,” he says to Kite, “Are you a dragon user?”

“Yes,” Kite says. “And I sense a strange energy from you.”

Two glowing dragons rise, one each from Kite and the old man, and proceed to roar loud enough to shake the ground.

“You have a fighting spirit just like him,” the old man chuckles as the dragons fade. “My name is Jinlong, and I am the guardian of the Number.”

“Who did you compare me to?” Kite asks.

Jinlong folds his hands in front of himself. “The legend of this ruin says that there was once a man who had the spirit of a dragon, and the dragons fought beside him.”

“Was that man’s name Mizael?” Astral asks.

Jinlong looks at him. “Oh? You know the legend?”

Astral shakes his head and looks at Yuma. “You were right.”

And if she was right, then that means that Durbe was a knight who was killed by his men, Vector was a mad prince who ordered thousands killed and then killed himself, and Alit was most likely in love with a prince and was executed for it. Yuma sways on her feet, feeling faint for the umpteenth time this weekend.

“Yuma, let me duel this man,” Kite says. “Destiny lead me here…my destiny as a dragon user.”

Yuma snaps to attention. “Fuck off, it was a phone call from Rio and Kotori!” She snaps. “You can duel him, but don’t get fucking pretentious over it.”

Kite doesn’t answer her, but instead engages his Sailor Moon change mode. Jinlong summons a duel disk from thin air, and the two begin their battle.

Yuma sighs and looks at Astral and Ryoga. “Do we have to watch Kite live out his wet dream, or can we go find a wall to make out against?”

Ryoga sputters, and Astral asks, “What’s a wet dream?”

Jinlong summons the ruin’s Number, 46—an enormous, ivory dragon. “That’s a wet dream,” Yuma says, awed.

“So much power,” Kite mutters. He glares at Jinlong. “So that’s your dragon? Show me it’s power!”

Yuma’s awe fades and she almost falls over. “That’s a fetish,” she says. Over Ryoga’s shocked cry she shouts at Kite, “QUIT ADDRESSING THE OLD MAN AS ‘KISAMA’ YOU RUDE ASS!”

Jinlong makes the Number untouchable, and the only other monster on his field untouchable as well.

Kite summons Galaxy Eyes, probably planning to use its monster effect, but apparently Number 46 can negate dragon-type monster effects on the opponent’s field.

Ryoga and Astral gasp, but Yuma isn’t surprised. If this is meant to be a test for a dragon user, Kite probably saw this coming. He breaks through part of Jinlong’s defense and destroys his weaker monster.

“A passable strategy,” Jinlong says.

“I don’t need grades from you,” Kite retaliates.

“I meant it as a compliment,” Jinlong says. “Brat. You truly do remind me of Mizael.”

“I’m nothing like him!” Kite says.

“You’re exactly like him!” Jinlong snaps. “Don’t tell me you know Mizael better than I do, child.”

“Maybe, but you don’t know me,” Kite says.

“Oh? And you think you know who you are?” Jinlong asks. “You think you know what you’re made of, what your limits are? Then you are mistaken.”

Kite ends his turn and Jinlong starts his, summoning a new monster and backing Kite into what seems to be an impossible corner. But while one attack could end Kite, Jinlong’s monster can’t attack, so he ends his turn.

“I’ve got chills,” Yuma says.

“It’s unlike you to be nervous,” Ryoga says.

“Don’t get jealous, it’s not for Kite,” Yuma says, looking around. “I’m waiting for Mizael to show up.”

As the duel progresses, Kit sacrifices his own life points so he has a chance to defeat one monster, and ends up with only 200 points left. He’s in rough shape, but hasn’t lost the spark in his eyes. It’s a spark Yuma recognizes—Kite is angry. He’s always angry, but this time it’s because he feels like he’s being taunted. Kite doesn’t like when people holds things he can’t have in front of his face, Yuma saw it first hand in the duel carnival. But she also knows that Kite learned from that, learned not to make dumb mistakes out of desperation. So he may be down, but Yuma knows better than to count him out.

So when Jinlong takes control of Galaxy Eyes, Yuma knows Kite will take it back.

“You can pay half your life to destroy it, and keep it from falling into my hands,” Jinlong taunts. “Wouldn’t it be better to destroy it by your own hands than have it fall to the enemy?”

That strikes a chord with Yuma—they still haven’t heard the whole legend of this ruin, just that Mizael was involved. Did Mizael kill the dragon he fought beside, rather than have an enemy take it? Or was it the reverse, and he was killed by the dragon he once fought beside?

As Yuma puzzles this over, Kite evades certain destruction, summons Neo Galaxy Eyes, and starts the process of winning. Yuma quietly watches kite sidestep Jinlong’s traps, telling the man that he knew to prepare, because of how great a duelist Jinlong was, and knowing that Jinlong would push him to his limits.

“But you still call him ‘kisama,’” Yuma mutters.

Neo Galaxy Eyes strikes Jinlong with a finishing blow. Kite has won.

Yuma approaches Kite and puts her hand on his shoulder. Ryoga strides past them and kneels before Jinlong.

“Will you tell us the legend of these ruins?” He asks.

Jinlong nods. “Long ago, this land was protected by a dragon, and the people of the land called the dragon their guardian angel. Mizael was a human who had the heart of a dragon, and together they protected the land. But one year, tragedy after tragedy struck, and many people died. A wandering Shaman came to the land and proclaimed the dragon to be at fault for the carnage, and the people turned on the dragon. When Mizael stood up for the dragon, the people turned on him too, and said he should kill the dragon. Mizael aimed his sword at his own neck, and asked the people if they would believe his words if he gave his own life. Suddenly, hundreds of arrows flew through the air. The wandering Shaman had been a spy from a neighboring kingdom, who used the people’s weakened state to attack. They killed the dragon, and they killed Mizael, and they took over the land.”

Jinlong looks at Kite. “You, young duelist, never gave up on your dragon, nor did you give up the right to choose your own path. You are just like the hero, my hero, Miza—”

“ENOUGH!” A voice roars.

Yuma stumbles back and clutches her chest. “MOTHER FUCKER!” She screams as Mizael leaps down from a roof.

“You,” Jinlong growls. “How can this be? I sense Mizael’s soul in you…”

“Shut up,” Mizael snarls. “You say I was once a human? How dare you!”

“Oh fuck off,” Yuma snaps. “You’re a human right now you hypocrite. And what do you know about your own past? How do you know you’re not a human?”

Mizael pays her no attention and instead sneers at Kite. “I believe I owe you a duel,” he says.

“Fine by me,” Kite fires back.

Yuma throws up her hands. “Kite, can we not get into a dick-measuring contest right now? We got places to be!”

But as the words leave her mouth, the ground rumbles and Mizael scowls. “I’ll back off for today, but next time for sure…”

Before Yuma can even gather her wits to call him out, light fills the sky and nearly blinds her. When the light fades, she and the boys are standing on top of a measly little point.

“What happened to the ruins?” She asks, looking around. She sees something glinting by her foot and bends down to pick it up—it’s her father’s coin.

“The legend doesn’t end there,” Jinlong’s voice says.

A great dragon, Number 46, flies from the clouds and floats before the group. Jinlong’s voice says, “The dragon died, but its soul became touched by the Number. Thus I have protected the ruins and this power for eons, waiting for someone who can use this power wisely.”

So Jinlong was the dragon of the legend.

“In my eons, I once saw a great battle that nearly destroyed this earth, and I sense another great battle coming. Kite, I entrust myself to you. Help keep this battle from happening.”

The dragon fades and a card lands in Kite’s hand.

Yuma leans over his shoulder to look at the card. “Someday I’m going to need that,” she mutters.

“You can duel me for it,” Kite says.

“Well yeah,” Yuma agrees, “But can we duel with like, rock paper scissors?”

“Don’t be cute,” Ryoga says.

“I’m always cute!” Yuma whines.

 

* * *

 

Astral listens to the three of them banter from within the Key, so Yuma won’t see the grim look he must be wearing. He may not have absorbed this Number, but he regained a memory all the same.

“My mission is to destroy Barian world,” he whispers.

How will he tell Yuma?

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me [here](http://rainbow-galaxy-supernova.tumblr.com) on tumblr to see my shit posts and occasional updates on the series!


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